When I first heard “Demimonde”, I was immediately thrown off. Was it a demo, maybe? Maybe it wasn’t mixed yet? The roughness and natural reverb feels distant and uncomfortable. But as I continued to listen, things soon felt “normal” once again. Then, later in the track, things get all echoey again.
Enter a conceptual world, a world where love and lust are at war, secret lives intertwine with the normalcy or the family unit, and the choice to use your dignity as currency is ever available. This is, at least historically, the Demimonde described by Alexandre Dumas fils, a half-world of society, where caste power was in full display.
In the context of the track itself, urgent strings accompany trade-off vocals between Vickery and guest vocalist Frances Reid Twomey. The two trade lines, before meeting in unison to note, “You could stop this from happening.” It’s one of the most notable lines, along with, “I really should have left by now.”
It’s definitely different, musically, in terms of production, and even in terms of overall tone. Even in the supposed victory of walking away at the end, there’s still the weight of everything that came before. But the song has continued to grow on me, and it’s clear Vickery’s forthcoming album isn’t going to cut corners.
